Learning to Learn

For 17 years I was allowed to call myself a “lecturer” which I could have included in my Sceptic’s Glossary as “someone who spouts words”. It was patently a higher status (and rewarded) job than “teacher” who is expected to work with pupils (with at least a year’s full-time training for that task) and to produce results (however questionably measured).

In the 1970s a Lecturer had a lot of freedom – in terms of both choice and scale of holidays (3 months’ summer vacation for example)

Initially, I enjoyed that freedom…..although not so much with engineering students who took an understandably dubious attitude to the “liberal studies” programme in which I was initially employed - beautifully skewered in the Wilt series of novels by Tom Sharpe.

The work I particularly enjoyed was that with “mature students” - whether at the “adult education” classes of the Workers’ Educational Association; or in the Open University where I was a part-time tutor in its opening period….

In the 1970s, planning students at the famous Glasgow School of Art also proved to be a captive audience for musings about my practical experience as a reforming politician in a bureaucracy. Those were the days of Norman Dennis…..

I may not have helped them in their examinations – but at least I gave them a foretaste (and forewarning) of the games they would face in their future careers.

But my enjoyment faded as the academic Degree Machine cranked up its requirements and I found myself suddenly having to prepare course structures into which lectures and seminars fitted logically and seamlessly – without any special help being on offer. It was simply assumed that, having learned my subject, I would have the relevant skills to design course programmes, deliver lectures and organise seminars to ensure that students would read the relevant material and get through examinations successfully.

It took universities until the 1990s to wake up and make sure that lecturers were properly trained in these skills.

I had been winging my way for too long to be able to submit to the new requirements; got utterly depressed; and, after 3 years of winter misery, resigned in 1985….

Clearly, most teachers know how to teach kids – although I don’t quite know where the balance of argument currently lies between those who advocate “top-down” learning and those who favour a child-centred approach.

But adult learners clearly need a different approach – one that helps them discover things for themselves…as is expressed so well in this video – “10 things polyglots do differently”. 

It was 2005 before I got the opportunity to learn about the very different world of training adults – first in Kyrgyzstan where I was leader for two years of an EC-funded programme of capacity development for local government; and then in Bulgaria where I also led a programme to help prepare regional staff to comply with the requirements of EU membership.

I learned a lot from both experiences – starting with an intensive attempt to understand the needs of those in charge of the new municipalities of the small central Asian state and to provide relevant support. One of the results was this Roadmap for Local Government in Kyrgyzstan which I very much enjoyed preparing – as you will see from the way I pulled out the metaphor in the title (see the diagram at pages 76-77)

And I was able to use that in the very next project – benefitting from the insights of a Polish trainer in my team to produce one of my best papers - Training that works! How do we build training systems which actually improve the performance of state bodies?

So who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks??

making training effective - Part II

Part I suggested that the billions spent by the EC on training public officials over the past decade or so in ex-communist countries have not created sustainable training systems there - ie centres for training public officials whose full-time staff contain both trainers and specialists in the field of public management – and who actually play a role in helping state bodies operate effectively. Most of the new member and Accession states have a central training Institute – but its staff are small and (in all but a few cases) administrators who bring in public officials and academics for a few hours to deliver lectures. Little "needs assessment" can be carried out (an annual schedule is negotiated between the Institute and the Council of Ministers); Ministries have a training budget and pay for the attendance of those officials it allows to attend selected courses (whether at the Institute or other centres). It is virtually impossible for such a system to carry out serious evaluation of course content and of trainers – its staff lack the specialist knowledge (and status) to question, challenge and encourage. Such a system also focuses on individual needs – and is unable to input to discussions about the development of state capacity or help state bodies tackle their organisational problems.
In the older member States, such Institutes have played an important role in setting a vision for the improvement of public services; in monitoring developments and assisting the exchange of experience. At the time, however, such bodies were being established in the ex-communist countries, the new fashion amongst western consultants was for slimline, competitive training; the academic community in the east simply had no relevant experience to offer; and governments were offloading rather than building functions. The result was underfunded training centres.
With budget cuts of the past few years, the EC Structural Funds are being increasingly used to substitute for mainline funding. Given the competitive basis of the procurement, what this means is that private companies (rather than the Institute) are being paid to act as the administrators – undermining the possibility of the national Institute developing its capacity. One other result is an endless repetition of training the trainers programmes and Manual drafting. Whatever happened to the previous trained trainers and drafted manuals?
Of course, the picture is slightly more nuanced. Some countries have Institutes on the French model – which combine undergraduate teaching with short courses and have therefore a core of academic staff. Poland is the prime example (that academic bias can, of course, bring its own problems!) And Ministries of Finance and Justice tend to have their own training centres, staffed by experts in the relevant field. But the general picture stands.

Is there a different model – in these times of crisis? Only on three conditions -
1. if the development of state capacity is taken seriously – by officials, politicians and academics
2. if there is greater clarity about the role of training in individual learning and organisational development
3. if some academic sacred cows are sacrificed

I assume all new member states have the sort of EC-funded Operational Programmes which Bulgaria and Romania have – with themes such as Administrative Capacity and Human resource management (to mention two). Hundreds of millions of euros are allocated to private consultancies to carry out projects of training and capacity building with state bodies as the clients.
In highly politicised countries such as Romania, however, building capacity is not taken seriously. As Tom Gallagher’s most recent and powerful book on the country vividly shows, there are more private agendas at work eg loyalty to the figure who put you in your position. And those academic social scientists who have resisted the temptation to go into consultancy are, understandably, more interested in achieving status with their western colleagues than in making forays into the real world of public administration. Again I speak generally – and from my knowledge more of southern than northern new member states.
As far as training is concerned, it is remarkable (given how much money is spent on it) how little discussion there is of its role and practices in new member states. Training can be effective only under certain circumstances. The very language trainers use – "training needs assessment" – begs the question of whether training is in fact the appropriate intervention. It is the easy option – it assumes that it is the lower levels who are deficient whereas the real issue may be organisational systems or the performance of higher management. I was recently in charge of a project designed to give such an institute the capacity to assist public officials at regional and local levels in the effective implementation of the complex EC Acquis (eg the various legal requirements of safety, consumer rights, equal opportunities, environment). The project was designed as a training project when, for me, the issue was totally different. I tried to develop my argument in several discussion papers but could not, for various reasons, reach the right people for a discussion. Amongst the points I was trying to make were -

• Organisations (state bodies) perform only when they are given clear (and limited) goals – and the commensurate resources and management support. This requires the systems and skills of strategic management.
• This can be developed only through senior management being properly encouraged to prioritise and draft realistic action plans – based on project management principles.
• The core mission of Institutes of Public Administration should be to encourage and help senior management acquire these skills
• But they cannot do this as long as they are trapped in an administrative role – and traditional teaching philosphies

What I remember is the anger I aroused at our final conference from a Professor of Law when I dared to say that state bodies should recognise they cannot implement the acquis in its totality (even with the few opt-outs negotiated) and should prioritise.
I will continue the argument in a future post.

Culture cornerI’m glad to say that art galleries continue to open here in Sofia. I had been disappointed earlier in the year to encounter a nearby gallery which seemed to have closed down but yesterday discovered that it had, some months ago, re-opened under new ownershop and is a charming visit. It is Gallery-Museum" CLASSICA" at 32 Venelin Str., Sofia near the football stadium at Eagle Bridge. Its old website can still be seen here with some of the paintings still on offer. Young Leta and her mother are delightful guides and hosts.

Is training a waste of money? Part One

Christmas may still be 2 months away but one reputable blog has come with the sort of quiz we play at that time of the year - asking people “which book provides support, or is a book to which one often returns. And the answer cannot be the Bible”. As the participants in the subsequent discussion thread recognise, it’s not an easy question to answer. Most of our reading is novels and specialist stuff. There are, of course, classic novels (both old and new) to which we can and do return but several of the discussants say that it is poetry to which they go back – I would tend to agree. I often turn to TS Eliot, Bert Brecht, WS Graham and Norman MacCaig (sadly BBc doesn't allow me access this last), for example. What about my readers?

My subject today is training of public officials in ex-communist countries.
The European Union has spent many hundreds – if not thousands - of millions of euros on training of public servants in the accession states; in Eastern Europe and central Asia (and continues to do so in the Operational Programmes of its Structural Funds with which I am currently involved here in Bulgaria). Despite the European Commission emphasis on evaluation, I am not aware of any critical evaluation it has commissioned of that spending – nor of any guidelines it has issued to try to encourage good practice in this field of training public officials (It has issued, in recent years, guidelines on “good governance”, internal project monitoring, project cycle management, institutional assessment and capacity development, ex-ante evaluation). And, in particular, there is nothing available for those in transition countries who want to go beyond the task of managing one specific programme of training and actually build a system of training which has the key features of –
• Continuity
• Commitment to learning and improvement

A transition country is lucky if its officials and state bodies actually benefit from a training programme – with training needs being properly assessed; relevant and inspiring courses constructed; and delivered (by skilled trainers) in workshops which engage its participants and encourage them to do things differently in their workplace. Too often, many of these ingredients are missing. But, even if they are present, the programme is usually an ad-hoc one which fails to assist the wider system. The trainers disappear – often to the private sector; their training materials with them. No improvement takes place in the wider system of training public officials.

For 20 years now I have led public administration reform projects in a variety of “transition” countries in central Europe and central Asia – in which training and training the trainer activities have always been important elements. Initially I did what most western consultants tend to do – shared our “good practice” from western europe. But slowly – and mainly because I was no longer living in western Europe – I began to see how little impact all of this work was having. I summarised my assessment recently in the following way-
• Most workshops are held without sufficient preparation or follow-up. Workshops without these features are not worth holding.
• Training is too ad-hoc – and not properly related to the performance of the individual (through the development of core competences) or of the organisation
• Training, indeed, is often a cop-out – reflecting a failure to think properly about organisational failings and needs. Training should never stand alone – but always be part of a coherent package of development – whether individual or organisational.
• It is critical that any training intervention is based on “learning outcomes” developed in a proper dialogue between the 4 separate groups involved in any training system – the organisational leader, the training supplier, the trainer and the trainee. Too often it is the training supplier who sets the agenda.
• Too many programmes operate on the supply side – by running training of trainer courses, developing manuals and running courses. Standards will rise and training make a contribution to administrative capacity only if there is a stronger demand for more relevant training which makes a measurable impact on individual and organisational performance.
• In the first instance, this will require Human Resource Directors to be more demanding of training managers – to insist on better designed courses and materials; on proper evaluation of courses and trainers; and on the use of better trainers. More realistic guidelines and manuals need to be available for them
• Workshops should not really be used if the purpose is simply knowledge transfer. The very term “workshop” indicates that exercises should be used to ensure that the participant is challenged in his/her thinking. This helps deepen self-awareness and is generally the approach used to develop managerial skills and to create champions of change.
• Workshops have costs – both direct (trainers and materials) and indirect (staff time). There are a range of other learning tools available to help staff understand new legal obligations.
• HR Directors need to help ensure that senior management of state bodies looks properly at the impact of new legislation on systems, procedures, tasks and skills. Too many people seem to think that better implementation and compliance will be achieved simply by telling local officials what that new legislation says.
• A subject specialist is not a trainer. Too few of the people who deliver courses actually think about what the people in front of them actually already know.
• The training materials, standards and systems developed by previous projects are hard to find. Those trained as trainers – and companies bidding for projects – treat them, understandably as precious assets in the competitive environment in which they operate and are not keen to share them!

And this last point perhaps identifies one of the reasons why transition countries have found it so difficult to establish public training systems to match those in the older member states. From the beginning they were encouraged to base their systems on the competitive principle which older member states were beginning to adopt. Note the verb - "were beginning". And, of course, there is no greater zealot than a recent convert. So experts who had themselves learned and worked in systems subsidised by the state appeared in the east to preach the new magic of competition. And states with little money for even basic services were only too pleased to buy into that principle. The result is a black hole into which EU money has disappeared.
I will, in the next post, try to set out some principles for capacity development of public training systems in transition countries.
The photograph is of me at the communal table of Rozinski Monastery here in Bulgaria - taken a couple of year ago by my friend and colleague Daryoush Farsimadan, I think there is something appropriate there....

Balance again - revising training material

During the preparations for a recent project bid, I could not come up with anything to say about how we might review (as outsiders) existing training material. Of course we can identify criteria such as –
• factual
• comprehensive
• balanced
• up-to-date
• user-friendly
• clear

But the subsequent judgements (for a board which is not expert in the varous subjects) are inevitably subjective and arbitrary. And do they really expect trainers to use material which had been developed by a third party? If so, it is a good example of the mechanistic thinking about organisations which has overwhelmed us in the era of project management and the logframe (treating people as things which can be manipulated). Chris Grey’s book for which I gave a link yesterday, is one of the best exposes of this I have read for a long time. Indeed I now see his little book (purportedly about studying organisations) as the best tract against modern society I have read in a long time. It ties together very beautifully a lot of strands of critical social and political thought.
My recent experience attending these workshops has given me probably the most appropriate approach to this issue of revising training material. All trainers were asked last week to summarise the various difficulties which workshop participants (from the Bulgarian municipalities) have mentioned as having with the design or implementation of EC projects. This is a good approach since it requires the trainers to think about what the participants have said (rather than what they, the trainers, think) – one frequent comment is the disagreements they have with the national authority which identifies mistakes (for which they receive a monitary penalty). Of course, the way to deal with that is to have a note from the national authority identifying the most common mistakes!
Only when the trainer minds are focussed on the problems of the trainees, should they be invited to revise their material - with the following sort of questions to help them -
• Compared to what the target group needs to know about your subject, what did you assume they already knew when you drafted your slides and handouts?
• How would you now change your assumptions about what they already know?
• What changes will you now make in your slides and handouts - in the light of these comments and changed understanding?
• Do you work with a statement of “learning outcomes”? That is – a detailed statement of things participants did not know when they arrived at the workshop and that you hoped they would know at the end of the workshops?
• How much time do you take at the beginning of workshops to ask the participants for detailed statement of their expectations and the questions they bring to the workshop?
• How do you check whether these expectations have been met?
• Have you checked the split of time between your presentations – and participants input?
• Do you observe the rule that participants cannot take much more than a 20 minute presentation?
• What efforts do you make to bring participants into discussion?
• Do you put yourself in their shoes – with their concerns about HOW to draft winnable bids which can actually be implemented successfully?

Of course, this is self-assessment – and the new project I was talking about assumed that outsiders would review and update the training material. I think, however, this is a last resort. It is the trainers who have been through the experience of teaching their material. Better to have a system to encourage them to think about what they themselves learned (and then apply it to their own revision) – with the outsider’s role being a facilitating one. Such an approach, however, which tries to get a balance (or dialectic) between groups does not seem to fit the positivist beliefs and “monitoring and control” culture of our times.

The photo is one I took as I left the training workshop - just a few kilomtres up the road - to show the village dereliction Bulgaria has to cope with

training in despotic countries

Having personally spent five years living in countries such as Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and working with senior people in their governments, I am following with interest the discussion about university involvement with training civil servants and leaders in despotic countries.

If you ever needed proof about the populist depths to which the press has sunk in Britain, just look at the media coverage of the resignation of the LSE Director over the Libyan money which the School had been receiving (largely as a result of the pressures the Bliar and other Governments have put Universities under to build commercial links). Almost to a (wo)man, their comments condemn the involvement but fail to ask some basic questions. Colin Talbot has a more balanced reaction - I totally agree with this line of argument. I felt privileged to be allowed to stand in a classroom of the Tashkent Presidential Academy for Reconstruction and present to civil servants the sort of perspective about power enshrined in Rosabeth Kanter's Ten Rules of Stifling Innovation - and also to lay out the European experience of developing local government over the centuries.

Of course, the LSE Director (who came from the financial sector) was particularly unethical in his approach and deserved to go. But he is the easy scapegoat whose fate seems to absolve the rest from their guilt.
The late Fred Halliday (Middle East expert) seems to have been about the only academic to make public criticisms of the LSE acceptance of donations from various unsavoury despots - just before his death last year. It’s easy to be wise after the event - but the moral courage and nuanced judgement of people like Fred Halliday is in very short supply these days.

Many western universities have also run all sorts of training and education programmes in these same states. Does anyone seriously doubt that these encounters with democratic, open, education systems has not been a positive factor in helping to ferment the current revolt that is sweeping across the Arab world?

I have made this positive point in several BBC radio interviews over the past two days, against a tidal wave of criticism of the LSE. But I think that, in that context, the resigning LSE Director Howard Davies was absolutely right to defend the LSEs educational work with Libyan public servants, of which I was briefly a part in June 2008. As long as these programmes are not censored by the regimes in question, their impact can only be to the good.

Of course, in the real world it is not as simple as that – those of us who have worked in non-democratic states like China or Libya know that there are always pressures to compromise and self-censor, something we always have to guard against.
Rather more complex is whether Universities should accept money to establish research centres and programmes – like, for example, the Said Business School at Oxford (funded by a Saudi arms dealer). Here the issues of complicity with dodgy regimes or individuals become much more acute and potentially morally dubious.

It is in this area that Howard Davies and the LSE tripped up, but I’m still not sure it really merited his resignation. After all, these links were encouraged and supported by the then British government. And those on the right now attacking Tony Blair for pursuing this diplomatic strategy should ask themselves – would Libya be revolting now if it hadn’t been opened up to all sorts of western influences? Perhaps they should reserve their indignation for a Prime Minister who trots around the Gulf selling arms in the middle of all this?

But on balance, engagement with education organised by western Universities has had a huge, positive, effect on the Arab world and is probably not an insignificant factor in the current uprising. We in the University sector should be much more aggressive in defending this record – especially against media empires run by family-based autocracies that bear striking similarities to some Arab regimes I could mention.

Success in spite of the logframe - Part II

I'm revisiting some of my projects - trying to show how the successes came in spite of rather than because of the project management system the EU uses.


In February 2005 I arrived in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to start an 18 month project working with a Minister (without Portfolio) to develop the local government system. We actually had three offices – one in the capital and 2 in our 2 pilot Oblasts – and our job was to a mixture of policy advice and training. It also required us to produce a Roadmap for the development of local government (although there was already a decentralisation strategy). Just as I was finishing the Inception Report, I had to flee the country because of unrest which swept the President from power. I returned after a week to a bit of a political vacuum – but the municipalities were still there so we proceeded with the initial needs assessment which we did through focus group discussions.
I had a basic question – we were a short project in a field where there were already 2-3 donors (eg UNDP; Urban Institute) who had carved out an important role over the past 5 years and more. What, I wondered, was the distinctive contribution our small and brief project could make? The project design did not seem to have considered this question.
The first answer was that, unlike the other donors, we had a base in the field – 2 local offices – which gave us some special insights into the needs of remote village municipalities. Our intensive focus group sessions (see para 6 of this paper) and the drafting of the Roadmap also helped keep our minds constantly open to new ideas – and made me realise that one of our potential roles was to help ensure that the voice of remote people was heard in the capital. I got a bit angry, for example, with all the talk there about the “lack of municipal capacity” – and therefore wrote a whole new 100 page document on the issue of capacity development, turning the argument into one which rather questioned central commitment and capacity How do people measure municipal capacity? I asked and then suggested

that question can strictly be answered only in relation to the delegated tasks – since patently municipalities do not currently have the resources or the personnel to begin to perform “affairs of local significance”. And state bodies may therefore seem to be in the best position to answer the question since they delegate so many of their tasks to municipalities - for example the task of collecting national taxes . But it is hardly fair to give an organisation tasks it doesn’t want and for which it is not paid - and then blame it when it doesn’t carry them out “properly” (in the view of state bodies)! We argue later that the capacity of an organisation is built as it has the opportunity to take decisions for itself and learns from doing. It is exactly the same process as good parenting. Of course inexperienced young people will make mistakes – but it is the job of responsible parents who care about their children to create the conditions in which their children learn for themselves – at minimal cost to themselves and others. And some of the qualities therefore needed in those purporting to offer support to local government are care and compassion.

We held 70 workshops for the municipalities – with 1,500 participants. Motivation and appreciation was very high (the photo is a session in Atbashy). Early on in the project’s life, however, we took the view that training activities were transient events and that we should attempt to encourage a local learning capacity. Training is sustainable only if we work with motivated people – if they can then apply what they have learned and have follow-up. Initially we wanted to focus on target groups (eg newly-elected municipal Heads) but the elections took place in December 2005 and events meant that we were unable to start that particular work until May 2006, a few months from the scheduled end of the project (although I got a 6 month extension). We therefore started to focus on the entire (village) municipality – and in April 2006 experimented with a new more holistic approach to training
• A practising and successful German mayor carrying out interviews the day before the workshop with both municipal people and community activists
• His then making an initial presentation at the workshop to all staff, councillors and activists about the issues which had emerged from those interviews – and some examples about how these issues had been dealt with in other places
• Participants then going into working groups to develop options
• The full group then assessing which options to develop
• The project then organised regular follow-up, monitoring visits

This proved to be a very successful formula – with its focus on practical problems; encouraging people to work together on them; giving examples of where and how successful initiatives had been taken; and following up with regular visits to discuss progress. The spirit this created contrasts with that which often accompanies traditional training courses. The project’s Developing Municipal Capacity publication identified 10 factors which made it difficult to practice traditional training – and offers a typology of learning.
We did not initially understand the significance of the concept of a Roadmap – and it is one also which our beneficiaries also had some initial problems with. But, as we explain in the introduction to the readers of the document,

“A road map does not suggest a route – YOU choose the route. A roadmap simply locates the key features (mountains, rivers and swamps) you need to be aware of when trying to travel from the A to the B of your choice. So this is not an attempt to force foreign models on the local situation. Another point about a road map is that it cannot cover every changing detail nor tell you how you should approach certain situations – sometimes a large bump in the road or impatience can have fatal consequences. So a road map is only a guide - local knowledge, judgment and skills are needed to get you to your destination! And, like a map, you don’t have to read it all – only the sections which are relevant for your journey!”

The Roadmap contains powerful insights into the difficulties being experienced by the country in policy implementation.
To be continued

case study in sustainability

The EU project I spoke about yesterday was supposed (in the jargon) to „develop the capacity of the Institute of Public Administration to design and manage training to assist the implementation of the EU Acquis”. I have to confess that I struggled to see the logic of the project as it had been designed. The Institute consisted of about 20 administrative staff – the trainers they used were a mix of civil servants and academics. We had to appoint 6 regional coordinators who would select, train and manage appropriate trainers. The Institute did not have the budget for additional staff (even for their existing staff) so the 6 coordinators would be temporary appointments - responsible to the project - and not, therefore, help develop the Institute’s capacity. More seriously, most of the topics of the acquis (food safety; consumer protection; environment) are technical and specialised and do not obviously relate to the core mission of an Institute of Public Management. The project was also supposed to help the Institute set up training centres in 6 Regions – but, again, had no budget for this. Finally, for reasons too complicated to explain here, our project staff (7 key experts!) were not able to develop close working relations with the relevant Institute staff – and little or no „technical transfer” (and therefore capacity development) took place. Sure, we delivered on the tangible outputs – the training manuals; the E-learning platform; the training of trainers; more than 500 local officials trained; and the formal, signed documents for 6 regional centres – but there was absolutely no sustainability. And how could there be from a 12 month project – which, for various political reasons, was actually 6 months? My frustration showed in the Executive summary of the final Discussion paper I left behind-

• The Bulgaria state system is suffering from “training fatigue”. Too many workshops have been held – and many without sufficient preparation or follow-up. Workshops with these features are not worth holding.
• There seems little to show from the tens of millions of euros spent by projects here in the last decade on training of public servants. Training materials, standards and systems are hard to find.
• Training is too ad-hoc – and not properly related to the performance of the individual (through the development and use of core competences) or of the organisation (through, for example, strategic management)
• Laws do not implement themselves. They require political and managerial commitment and resources.
• Such commitment and resources are in limited supply. Organisations (state bodies) perform only when they are given clear (and limited) goals – and the commensurate resources and support. This requires the skills of strategic management. Helping senior management acquire these skills is – or should be - the core mission of the Institute of Public Administration.
• A serious effort needs to be undertaken to establish a network of training suppliers (or community of learners) which can, for example, share experience and materials - and help develop standards.
• It is not enough, however, to operate on the supply side. Standards will rise and training make a contribution to administrative capacity only if there is a stronger demand for more relevant training which makes a measurable impact on individual and organisational performance.
• In the first instance, this will require Human Resource Directors to be more demanding of training managers – to insist on better designed courses and materials; on proper evaluation of courses and trainers; and on the use of better trainers. A subject specialist is not a trainer. We hope this book (and the project’s paper on assessment tools) will help give some benchmarks.
• It is critical that any training intervention is based on “learning outcomes” developed in a proper dialogue between the 4 separate groups involved in any training system (funder; training managers, trainers and learners)
• senior management of state bodies should look closely at the impact of new legislation on systems, procedures, tasks and skills. Too many people seem to think that better implementation and compliance will be achieved simply by telling local officials what that new legislation says.
• Workshops have costs – both direct (trainers and materials) and indirect (staff time). There are a range of other tools available to help staff understand new legal obligations. These are outlined and briefly assessed in section 9 of the final discussion paper
• Workshops should not really be used if the purpose is simply knowledge transfer. The very term “workshop” indicates that exercises should replace lectures – to ensure that the participant is challenged in his/her thinking. Suitable exercises force the participant to examine their own (all too often hidden) assumptions and create an environment in which presentations about legal and policy frameworks become more alive and meaningful. This type of workshop aims at extending self-awareness and is generally the approach used to develop managerial skills and to create champions of change.

It was interesting to talk with the new Head of the Institute - who was our official counterpart on day to day matters. After our departure, the Institute was transferred from the "Ministry of State Admin and Admin Reform" to the Ministry of Education where it languished until it was tranferred to the Council of Ministers from which it had departed some 5 years before! Four upheavals in the course of 5 years! And during these last 2 years it has had to dispense with about 20% of its staff and operate for a significant period of time with no budget!! But shortly it will face the headache of having to manage a 10 million euro project - the 5th or 6th "capacity-building"intervention it's had in the last decade.
The painting (Les Aveugles - blind leading the blind) is one by the Walloon, Anto Carte, whose school of paintings I wrote about some weeks back

Revisiting the scene of the crime

The biting cold continues – just as well I have friends who know the good Rakis (or are prepared to share their home elixir) and that there are so many red wines whose acquaintance I still have to make here. As I write, I’m tasting a Chateau Rossenovo from the „southern black sea region” (Pomorie??) which I took from the sparse shelves of my old wine merchant in his little basement store on Bvd General Totleben (did they make that up? The German name means ”deathlife”!) just before it hits Bvd General Skobelev (Did these two generals have a feud – over a woman perhaps??)
It’s not as good as the Brestovitza reds to which he introduced me some 3 years ago.
Although I spent a couple of hours today with the trainers, most of my time in the last 2 days has been with paintings, drawings and artists. Even last night’s meal with close friends was at the Architects' Association - one of Sofia’s best restaurants (for me).
I still haven’t made up my mind about the Dionesev seascape at Valmar (a bit gaudy). But I was deeply impressed with a dark blue young Stoian Vassilev seascape – and a powerful Petar Boiadjiev cliffscape.

The nice thing about revisiting the scene of your crimes (previous projects) is the possibilities of building some continuity. As the trainers were working on their exercises, I had the time to look again at the Discussion paper I left behind here 2 years ago and was interested to see again some of the points I made in that final document. The project aim was to help Bulgaria implement new EU requirements in fields such as food safety, environment, consumer protection by working with the Institute of Public Administration to design and deliver training programmes (including some distance learning) for local officials charged with the implementation of the new systems, prodecures and obligations. I was not, frankly, very familiar with what is called the EU Acquis Commuanitaire (the huge volume of legal obligations on EU member states) and found quite fascinating the huge academic literature which has developed on "the transposition and adoption of EU norms"(as the jargon puts it). As a "political scientist" (I don't like the term) rather than a lawyer, it is not surprising that I have become pretty critical of the emphasis placed on legislation. For me, legislation is perhaps necessary but never sufficient to achieve the changes being sought. As I put it in the conclusion to the Final Discussion Paper Learning from Experience - some reflections on the role of training in developing administrative capacity-

• laws are enacted in order to achieve specific social purposes
• they are one tool amongst many to achieve such purposes
• although EU law is dominant in many fields –particularly those relating to the single market – considerable scope is left to member states for complementary national legislation and structures of implementation
• this is particularly true of enforcement systems (in the general rather than legal sense)
• the transposition of EU laws in new member states outruns the capacity of institutions, budgets and societies to apply them in the manner intended
• derogations which were negotiated at the accession stage recognise this – but perhaps not fully
• governments in new member states are, however, hesitant about admitting too openly that they have to – and actually do - prioritise areas for improvements consistent with the EU acquis and good practice. Setting priorities is currently one in an ad-hoc and implicit manner
• transparency requires that this process of setting priorities is done more explicitly and openly – and reflected in the action plans
• such a process requires a realistic set of monitoring instruments
• effective training is linked to realistic action plans

Of course, I was just indulging myself since I was just a foreigner parachuted in for a year and why should anyone (let alone senior) listen to me? In fact I did have some conversations with one of the Deputy Ministers (of the Ministry for Administrative Reform) and the Final Conference did give an opportunity for an exchange about such things with one of Bulgaria's prominent jurists who understood perfectly what I was driving at and gave as good as he got!
I'll say more about the project tomorrow
The painting is a Petar Boiadjiev - the one I bought yesterday is much much better!

The balance of power

My blog managers have suddenly added a statistics button which tells me the number of people accessing the site. Quite salutary to learn that the most popular entry was one in which I said absolutely nothing – merely gave a link to the Ideas Festival!! What was that about? And do I have to conclude that “least said best said”? Probably – since I have also noticed that it tends to be the shorter Amazon book reviews which are rated most highly. Talking of which, I am still not able to use my Amazon site – perhaps one of my readers can help me? Amazon certainly can’t – they gave me some obtuse advice about my cookies. I started to look in the oven – but did eventually manage to find a cookie-editing facility on the laptop and adjust it but it made no difference.
During the cold war, the phrase “balance of power” became unfashionable in liberal circles - and remains so. I never succumbed to that liberal fallacy. I had meant to devote my last post of 2010 to the principle of the golden mean – since I’ve been reminded a couple of times recently about the importance of “balance” in development. First was some work I was doing for a project bid. I had to draft something about building up the training system for civil servants and I remembered some consolidated thoughts on this issue I had drafted a couple of years ago – building on what I had learned from three years setting up a training centre for civil servants in Uzbekistan; 2 years’ work with Kyrgyz municipalities; and a year developing training in Bulgaria to help “the implementation of European norms” (to use the dreadful jargon. Most technical assistance works on the supply side – training trainers and helping establish training institutions. However useful this is, the main factor which will ensure training effectiveness is a clear demand from the organisation in which the “trainees’ work. A Polish friend and colleague on the latter project (Jacek) helped me understand the relevance of “learning outcomes” - and another friend and colleague (Daryoush) and I had developed a diagram which showed that effective training required input from 4 different groups – client, training manager, instructor and learner. Very slowly in the west, power has shifted from the suppliers to the consumers – but the best system is one in which there is a balance of power.
Then there was the thought-provoking start to Henry Mintzberg’s 2000 article on the management of government
“It was not capitalism which triumphed when the Berlin wall fell – it was balance.” the article began – going on to set the “strong private sector, strong public sector and strength in the sectors between” against the lack of balance and of “countervailing power” in the so-called communist societies.
A recent paper from the Compass Think-Tank Time for a new socialism made the point that thinking about the best point of balance between the various sectors shifts cyclically.

Historians like Arthur Schlesinger and theorists like Albert Hirschman have recorded that every thirty years or so, society shifts - essentially, from the public to the private and back again. The grass, after a while, always feels greener on the other side. The late 1940s to the late 1970s was a period of the public, the late ‘70s to now, the private. Now the conditions are right for another turn, to a new common life and the security and freedom it affords, but only if we make it happen by tackling a market that is too free and a state that is too remote.